TEPHA is the acronym for "Technical Product Harvesting", a boost funds project on the idea of plant-derived near net shape components as an ecological and bioeconomical alternative to the conventional design and production of construction parts. It is a very interesting and highly challenging endeavour together with the engineering design, architects and plant scientists of RWTH Aachen University. Boost Funds means high risk research. It is money for starting rather crazy or at least risky research ideas. The funding is granted by RWTH Aachen University through the German Excellence Initiative.
Our part in the project is to conduct an LCA study for comparing environmental impact of the conventional production process of a simple chair with our TEPHA approach to grow the chair parts. The challenging bit is that we aim to develop a concept to integrate ecotoxicological data into LCA. Being die hard ecotoxicologists we will of course also conduct bioanalytical investigations on fertilisers, pesticides, and other additives required to grow near net shape plants. From all this will result a comprehensive database of plants with their different properties and characteristics. It will relate those parameters with the possible different functions of near net shape components and deliver the best suited plant candidates for a given purpose.
So far we succeeded to let bamboo shoots grow in a 90° angle and then more or less turn back to normal, thus forming another 90°. If you imagine the side parts of a simple chair, that's already quite close to what we seek for.
This also shows clearly that a boost fund project does not have to conduct rocket science in the beginning. We are allowed to first explore ideas, concepts and possibilities. Later on we are requested to apply for follow-up funding from other institutions.
The project logo was designed in a competition with me by Anna-Lena Beger, who is quite skilled with Photoshop.
For further information see the project page on our institute website.
Also available are the following conference papers:
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